MTA to remove trash cans at 29 subway stations to reduce litter

Members of the MTA subway garbage train remove garbage from the Seventh Ave. station as part of an effort to reduce litter. (Keivom, James/New York Daily News)

The MTA will remove garbage cans from 29 stations on the J and M lines — saying it might reduce litter, officials announced Monday.

Officials said they are making the move because the amount of trash at 10 stations on other lines went down after they took away garbage cans for a pilot program launched several years ago.

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"We've seen a change in customer behavior," Joe Leader, Vice President of subways, said at an MTA committee meeting. "Riders knew that there weren't trash cans at those stations, so they took their trash somewhere else."

In that 10-station pilot program, the number of garbage bags hauled away dropped by 66%, MTA staffers said in a report to the authority's board.

Station surveys found moderate-to-heavy litter at those stations 41% of the time prior to the pilot — and 30% of the time in the last six months of last year. There was a small increase of trash on the tracks, officials said.

The concept isn't novel. The Port Authority hasn't had trash cans at its PATH stations for more than a decade.

The MTA removed cans from these stations in 2011 and 2012: Main St. (7), 8th St. (R), 238th St. (1), E. 143rd St. (6), 57th St. (F), Rector St. (1), 7th Ave. (F and G), Brighton Beach (Q), 111th St, (A) and 65th St. (M and R).

MTA says if there are fewer trash cans, people take it with them. Above, an empty subway garbage train. (Keivom, James/New York Daily News)

The MTA will start removing garbage cans in a few months from the J line between Broad St., Manhattan, and Parsons/Archer in Queens, and the Broad St., from Essex St., Manhattan, and Middle Village, Queens.

Only one board member raised a stink about expanding the garbage-can pilot program.

Mark Page, city budget director under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said the garbage that riders used to deposit in station trash cans didn't just "disappear into the ether."

"If we're not collecting it, it's either being dumped in the street or someone else is collecting it," he said.

The MTA's NYC Transit division hasn't received any complaints from the city Department of Sanitation about subway trash inundating streets above ground, Leader said.

Transit officials have said they don't envision removing garbage cans from all 468 stations.